Elegy, in C Minor
by 1shot
Summary: This is not how the story will end. A road trip toward eternity; rating for mild language, gore, sexual imagery. No spoilers.


ELEGY, IN C MINOR

Caroline waits in the graveyard. She waits a long time, but it is only a few hours before she discovers that her brown suede boots were not the best choice for wet earth. She frowns downward, wiggles her frigid toes and keeps moving through the night, heels occasionally catching on vines. When daylight comes, she lies in the crypt marked LOCKWOOD, runs her hands over crumbling stone angels and thinks about how Bram Stoker was probably a jerk and she could really use a blanket right now.

When she cannot sleep, Caroline takes an old yearbook out of her backpack and perches cross-legged by Carol Lockwood's tomb marker ('Beloved Wife', it says; she wants to scoff but it seems rude). She sorts slowly through the cracking pages and the yellowed photographs she's tucked into the binding; she smiles, lifting Tyler's last football photo up to the barred window's light. His hair is mussed; he's impossibly bold, all shoulder pads and cocky grin. "Hot," she comments, but no one answers. After a while, she puts the pictures away.

The graveyard is half overgrown, these days; when Caroline steps outside again, the sky is cold and clear. There are stars on the horizon, not quite obscured by city lights.

She waits a few more hours.

She hears her quarry before she sees him; his footsteps are more careful than usual, making light sucking sounds in the chill mud, and the body he carries leaves him an ungainly silhouette.

Caroline leans against the icy marker carved with 'Gilbert'; she drapes herself, rather, her arms a loose embrace around stone memory, as though she were hugging a friend. She rests her cheek against rough granite, and she is not hiding, but she receives no acknowledgment from the new arrival. Instead, all that greets her is the clink of a shovel, the whisper of folded fabric and old brittle bone. There's no blood; this corpse stinks of formaldehyde and flowery perfume.

Caroline is in no hurry; the graveyard is a comforting familiarity, these days. She knows each tilting stone, each humble unmarked space. Grass has grown over all her friends.

After the hole being dug has reached acceptable proportions, she ventures, "He had a perfectly decent burial two days ago. It was nice. I was at the service."

The shovel pauses.

"Too upscale," comes Damon's verdict. "Too much crying."

Caroline doesn't say anything, because, really - she's here, and he's right, and this is where they all belong. She is just one more wraith.

She waits while Damon digs his hole and lays the body down; she waits while he fills it in. The first flat sound of the dirt hitting the makeshift shroud makes her shiver. _Goodbye again, Jeremy_, she thinks; the stringy dead flesh is cold and rotting in the ground. Caroline closes her eyes and curls her arms around the worn edges of 'Gilbert,' and she does not weep.

She cried two days ago. Also, this is Damon.

He tosses the last slaps of mud into place and lets the shovel drop from his hand, reaching instead inside his jacket. "Gang's all here."

Damon's not talking to Caroline, really, and she doesn't answer. He draws out a flask, unscrews it, and takes a pull; stepping four precise feet to the side, he pours a dram of sharp bourbon onto a particular rocky mound. "Ric," he acknowledges; it's the only ritual he grants, before he tilts his head back to finish off the rest of the bottle himself.

"See you, Blondie," he adds. "Have a nice life."

He doesn't linger. Still, when he gets back to the car, Caroline's already there, settled into the passenger seat. He opens the driver's side door, drops in reeking of booze and soil and death, and says, "Private party. If I didn't make that clear." He doesn't bother looking at her.

"Oh my god," says Caroline. "Just shut up and drive."

She is genuinely surprised when he does.

.

Caroline wakes with a stake pressed to her sternum; it is hard and heavy and she can't breathe. She can feel her skin parting, the way the smooth wood digs at the edge of her rib.

"Cemetery's not far," observes Damon, easily; his smile is all fang. "If I just kill you here, it'll save me a trip later." He's crouched over her on the mattress, his weight on the stake and his shadow on her worn t-shirt.

Caroline chokes, "I'm too pretty to die," and she makes it as carefree as she can, because she is not supposed to show fear to wild dogs. Or maybe that's bears. For a brief, panicked moment, she isn't sure, but then the stake's out and Damon's across the room and she can breathe again. Her fingertips graze the blood, the hole in her shirt.

"Actually," says Damon, "that only explains why _I'm_ still around." He fixes his hair, a quick flick of fingers. He's checking the shape of his eyebrows in the mirror.

Caroline flashes to high school, suddenly - sixty years and a lifetime ago, and she was seventeen and he was an asshole, and some things never change.

So she laughs, and the look he shoots her is vaguely incredulous. Damon slides the stake into a black canvas bag; he hefts the bag itself over his shoulder.

"You'd bury me, too," says Caroline. "Still a gentleman, huh."

"I like to be tidy."

Damon is as cold as the gravestone she'd wrapped her arms around, but when he steps for the door Caroline says, "I miss them too." She sits there on the bloody mattress with her hands pressed to her thighs, her fingers locked hard together.

The door shuts with a click, and Caroline sighs. She rolls her eyes, and reaches for her clothes, only to find that her knapsack is open and her photos are spread across the foot of the bed. The one on top is fading and bent. _Yes_, she thinks, _of course_, because picture Stefan has his arms around picture Elena. Their crinkling smiles are unaware, but there's a sharp new tear at the photo's ragged corner, just below Elena's hand.

Caroline takes a breath, swallows, and gathers everything up; all the little remnants, everything she has. When she steps outside, squinting in the sunlight, Damon's still there in the motel parking lot; he's got the car idling (humming, really; she hates these sleek new things) and he's tapping his fingers against the wheel.

Caroline slides into the passenger seat again. She doesn't ask where they're going.

.

The vehicle is older by today's standards, and Damon has disabled almost everything: the emergency tracking, the automatic mood music, the advertisements and the alcohol monitor and the ever-present chirpy computer voice. They drive unspeaking, silent for days on end, accompanied by a dead video screen and the greatest hits of yesteryear. Caroline likes Coldplay and Damon plays Sinatra; by unspoken agreement, the soundtrack stops somewhere around 2025.

"I thought we were supposed to have flying cars by now," complains Caroline, stretching her feet up on the dash. The sun is warm on her bare toes.

Damon says, "Suck it up, princess," but he's lacking in sufficient venom, so Caroline just lets her fingers trail out the window.

"Are we fighting now?" she asks. "Is it your time of the month?"

It nets her half a smirk before he turns the music louder.

All the motel rooms blend together; the sheets are worn cotton or rich satin or old silk. Once, Damon finds a cockroach in his bath and takes a retaliatory chunk out of the night clerk, and they drive again while Damon stares at the sky and Caroline fights the urge to scratch at bugs that aren't there. She shakes out her jacket for the third time and asks, "Is it stupid that I even care?"

She thinks Damon will say yes, but instead he says, "Obsolescence is no excuse for poor standards." He picks flesh fastidiously from between his teeth.

They keep going, through endless towns and cities and open fields, until finally Caroline caves. "Are we stopping, ever?"

Damon shrugs. "Say the word," he replies, indifferent. She's surprised, maybe oddly touched, that he would let her pick, but the nights roll by and the roads pass under and she comes to realize that one glittering horizon is very like another, and home is two thousand miles and half a century away.

.

They will be young and beautiful forever, but they only come together in the dark, with their eyes closed. He rakes his teeth over her skin; she cracks his femur; they slice their nails across each other's spines. They are not afraid of leaving scars.

Only once does Damon breathe, "Elena." Caroline feels every joint in her body lock, just before she's rolled them both off the bed and slammed him up against the wall - fast, so fast, she doesn't think - with her forearm against his throat and his wide blue eyes staring into hers.

"No," she says firmly, and she watches his face change: the startlement leeches to something like an open wound, just before he closes off completely, all the hard marble of his delicate bones. He locks an unforgiving hand around her wrist, pulls her down and snakes his fangs toward her shoulder.

"_Katherine_," he grits just above her collarbone, incisor snagging a sharp tear in her throat, and Caroline sighs, "Whatever. Hurry up, okay."

He bleeds her and she doesn't care. She wants him to sprout fur - wants him to contort and snarl beneath her hands - so she guesses it's all equal in the end.

She closes her eyes again.

.

They stop at some run-down roadside carnival because Caroline insists; she wanders amid old striped tents and creaky rides, hugging herself. Her arms are tight to her sides so all the giggling children will not brush against her. She can hear the blood rush through their veins; their pumping hearts are a hundred tiny drumbeats beneath the barkers' cries.

"Guess your weight!" a man in a top hat calls to her, cheerfully. "Guess your age!"

Caroline laughs a little, then, and shakes her head. If she tries, she can envision a banner - 'Founders' Day', 'Founders' Fair', 'Founders' Festival', it doesn't matter, Mystic Falls and Founders, Founders, Founders.

She buys a caramel apple and stops at the fortune teller's table, because the girl with the tarot cards has tacky gold circles in her hair, and too much makeup, but she shuffles her deck with Bonnie's dusky, graceful fingers.

When Caroline says, "Sure, tell my future," the cards go very still.

"Death," says the girl, not bothering to deal. Her dark gaze is only on Caroline. "Blood. Fire." There's no rancor in it; she adds, genially, "Be careful, honey."

Caroline wipes caramel off her chin, fingers sticky, and says blankly, "Why?"

"Because no one here is real to him." The fortune teller lifts her chin, gestures across the faceless crowd to where Damon waits - he is leaning against a fence post by the entrance, face as perfect and bored as a mannequin. "And I don't think you like each other very much."

Caroline swallows. They watch until Damon senses their eyes on him; he turns his head and stares straight back at Caroline, expression resettling into sardonic irritation. He raises an eyebrow (can we go now?) and Caroline sighs. She swipes her arm through the fortune teller's reader, transfers more cash than she strictly needs to, and says, "Take care of your hands, okay."

When she reaches the fence, she takes Damon's arm. His eyebrows jump another half inch. "Not your boyfriend, sunshine."

"And I'm grateful every day. Let's go. We're done."

It's her turn to drive. Damon drops into the car and sleeps, or pretends to; Caroline flips on the autopilot and sits staring out the window while the display tracks through maps, plots out satellite headings and recalibrates, recalibrates, recalibrates. She picks destinations at random and thinks about the pretty faded colours on the tarot cards, because it's easier than dwelling on a future that can't be changed. _Too late_, thinks Caroline. The car beeps.

.

Caroline stands alone at the side of the highway. She knows that Damon is starting a fight in the crappy bar across the parking lot, and it'll be a bad one, because some random college kid has Stefan's eyes and is losing at pool with Stefan's patient sigh.

She thinks about sticking out her thumb and letting some trucker take her away. He could leer down her shirt, this phantom saviour; she could show some leg and giggle and toss her curls right up until the next stop and his hot wet bloody veins, somewhere else, somewhere far away. The night wind is in her hair and there's a cold drizzle making the pavement glitter.

She thinks about that other, potential Caroline. She thinks about being the face that no one knows.

Then she perches against the car's hood, and tilts her head back, watching the black clouds and blinking rain from her eyes until the sounds of shouting and breaking glass die down inside the bar. Damon leaves ominous silence echoing behind him when he staggers out with blood on his chin and a bottle of whisky in his hand.

She knows there is someone she used to be; she knows the quiet should bother her more than it does.

"Hey," says Caroline, "Remember when -"

"Nope." He leaves no room for discussion.

"Right," she pouts, and straightens, so she can dart through the rain and brace Damon when he sways too far. He throws an arm around her shoulder, a warm and drunken cling for balance, and then she's got her hands full of black leather and attitude.

Damon takes another pull of whisky; Caroline takes another few pounds of his weight. "It was the best of times," he slurs then; he drops his head down, rests his forehead against hers. Two inches away and he looks her in the face, drowned gaze struggling for something she can't label and can't give. "It was the worst of times." There's something off about his grin; something broken-edged and torn. His lips are smeared with gore.

"Uh-huh," sighs Caroline, and, "You are so totally gross," but she gets him into the front seat anyway, before the cops come. Damon's head lolls on her shoulder as she pulls out; he curls loose fingers around her hand.

She can almost pretend that he remembers her name.

.

"We're not tumbleweeds," she says, finally, so they stop in the next town and Damon finds them some random house - Caroline doesn't ask how, although of course the place is sprawling. It isn't filled with antiques but feels like it should be, and maybe they could work on that.

Caroline spends a few days tooling around empty halls while Damon stocks the liquor cabinet and then promptly starts depleting it again. He sets himself up with Egyptian cotton sheets and a bunch of books, sampling fine liqueurs and the collected works of James Joyce.

Caroline explores the main streets; she drifts through coffee shops and elegant boutiques. She buys scarves and new shoes and a stuffed bear, so she can scatter them around her room like it's home.

She tacks her pictures on the wall. Her mother's face glares from a crumbling news clipping; Liz Forbes is in uniform, stern and angry. Caroline puts the fragile paper gently in a frame.

Eventually, inevitably, Caroline finds herself on the steps of the local high school. She stares up at the tall doors, laughing students streaming past her, and she smoothes her hands over her skirt again and again. Then the bell rings, like it's her own personal anthem, and she's inside. It is her private country. She is ready to be queen.

Computer this, computer that, bio-identifications and registrations - Caroline's world is a brief flurry of compulsion and dubious explanation, but then she wanders the halls at will, drifting from one class to the next. She is still bright and blonde; she flirts and smiles and talks about math.

After school, she sits in the gym with the dance committee and someone presses a sparkly gold marker into her hand.

Caroline looks around at all the smooth and grinning young faces, and hears their pulses thrum. She can count every beat of the head cheerleader's thumping heart.

Abruptly and breathlessly, she _wants_.

She wants to see Elena crossing the gym; she wants to feel the old familiar jealousy, watching Elena's long legs and Elena's secret smiles. She wants her phone to chime, because Bonnie's just texted, but Caroline can't remember anymore what the ringtone sounded like.

She wants Bonnie.

She wants to turn her head and see Matt and Tyler dribbling basketballs, leaping for hoops like they don't have half an eye on whether or not all the girls are watching.

"Oh my god," she says, stunned. "We were never this young."

"What?" The redhead girl crouched just nearby turns, pure friendly enquiry, and there's a sudden roaring in Caroline's ears. That's how she finds herself out back, with her mouth full of cheerleader and her eyes full of salt blur. She thinks the redhead's screams are echoing, but a second later she realizes it's the monitors wailing.

"You kill anyone?" asks Damon, when she bursts through the front doors, and Caroline snarls, "I will, if we stay here."

They never really unpacked the car.

.

"So I got her to make us new identities, but they're replacing all the old chips; the good news is these should last us a year or two, anyway. I mean, should." Caroline plunks down on the couch with a kitchen knife in one hand, digging the sharp tip into the flesh of her wrist, and she cuts back a hiss as she fishes for the sharp metal of the implant.

"Sure," mutters Damon, "until _someone_ eats a school." He tosses her a towel and drops down next to her, the light shock of his impact driving the knife against Caroline's bone as she braces her arm on her knee.

"Thanks," she says, tightly; she doesn't give him the satisfaction of flinching. "Here." She hands over the knife and presses the towel to her arm, sopping up a rush of red. She lifts the new chip from the table and jams it hard and fast into the gash of her skin. "You know, I always thought our cyborg future would be cooler."

Damon doesn't answer; Caroline is busy with her towel and it takes her a moment to realize that he's just sitting there, blade in hand. "You should probably roll up your sleeve," she comments, all faux helpfulness, and he shakes his head.

"I can't believe I actually miss credit cards."

"Suck it up, princess."

Damon gives her a sharp look, and Caroline offers her sunniest smile. "Klaus managed a thousand years," she points out. "What? Already you want these kids off your lawn?"

Damon's left fist clenches; the knife jams into his arm. Caroline wants to say something about all the crimson he just got on the cushions but she doesn't, because she has seen the moment in which he is bleak and old.

She shivers, taking his wrist, and she's gentle when she licks the blood away. He doesn't thank her for it.

.

"Come on," says Damon, breezing through the door. He tosses Caroline a shopping bag; she opens it and blinks down at the array of blue silk, the slip of lace.

"You think you can buy me off with a dress?"

"Well, we _have_ met before."

Caroline thinks about that. "Touché," she concedes. An hour later they are out at some downtown club where neon is making a comeback. Caroline likes dance music; she doesn't need to know the words, and time hasn't changed the nature of a pounding beat.

They are surrounded by a sea of meat and hot blood; they are glorious, because he is graceful and dark against her brilliant golden rhythm. Damon sets his hands on Caroline's hips, and she turns, hands in the air and her back against his chest. She is startled by his solidity. "Those kids in the corner," he mutters in her ear, "are trying to impress you."

Caroline can't remember the last time she laughed and meant it.

The beat changes and she shifts with it, swirling. An instant later, she's stumbling a graceless half-step because there's no one to catch her; Damon is frozen in place. Caroline blinks, spots his dead stare in the strobe, and whips her head around to follow the line of his attention.

She nearly chokes. All she sees across the room, just at the door, is a fall of smooth dark hair, a girl with long legs and a secret smile.

Caroline crosses the floor before Damon does. It takes her less than a heartbeat. There's a hole in her gut and one fierce breath where she thinks it's all been a lie, or worse, that it will all happen again; she locks her hand around the strange girl's forearm and pulls harder than she means to. She doesn't realize until she registers the flare of the other's surprised gaze - green, afraid - that she was honestly expecting Elena's weary affection, or even Katherine's saucy smirk.

It isn't true, though - it's _not_ - and Caroline stands at the edge of the dance floor with her hand bruising a stranger's wrist. The girl has the wrong colour eyes and a nose that's too pointed, but an irritated head tilt that's just exactly right.

"What -" begins the girl, and Caroline breathes, "_Run_."

Neither of them is fast enough. A wind whips through the club; it used to be the slender, vicious man by the stage. Caroline, jerked off-balance, flexes her suddenly empty fingers, and stands alone.

The music keeps throbbing, and the club lights are harsh and jagged. Shuddering, she shuts her eyes.

.

Caroline sits by the open curtains of a hotel bedroom, the sun streaming in across her shoulders. She is looking at the wide mattress where Damon sprawls, one arm dangling, his body loose beneath the sheets and his breath marked with the blood of a ghost he cannot exorcise.

Their luggage, spare as it is, is at the foot of Caroline's chair; knees up, bare feet tucked in, she leans down and draws the yearbook from her bag. Photos flutter free when she opens it; she catches them, quick and careful, before they can hit the floor.

There is an image of Stefan that is very old; it is not one of Caroline's pictures, but it has joined the stack. She breathes along its edges, looking at the faded face; she is not sure whether the photo was taken when he was alive. Stefan looks stern, formal and unsmiling, but she remembers the glint of humour in his eyes.

The picture offers nothing helpful, though, and Damon doesn't move.

Caroline holds the loose photos in one hand, gently, and thumbs through the book. Class of '11. She touches her fingertips to the football team; she covers Tyler's smile with her thumb, runs a fingertip over Matt's hair, and looks briefly out the window. The city is bright and tall, outside. There's an ozone haze on the horizon.

The cheerleaders are on the next page, and Caroline feels her lips curve; she names them, silently. _Sasha, Ellen, Lisa, Courtney _- then there comes a face she doesn't know, some girl who is far too happy, a girl with red and white pompoms and a future and a beaming, innocent grin. The caption beneath reads 'Caroline Forbes.'

She sits very quietly for a moment, then she slips her pictures solicitously back into the book's front and flips the cover shut. Everything goes into her backpack, zipped and safe.

Caroline straightens and brings Damon's bag with her. It's heavy with bottles and spare jeans; she settles the thick, worn canvas into her lap. For a long time further, she is still; the sun is warm across her back, and she rests one hand on top of the other, toying with the ring on her finger, watching the way it glints in the light.

They are countless miles and seventy-five years from home.

When Damon makes a noise - the slightest, pillow-muffled groan - Caroline reaches into the bag's side pocket.

Against her palm, she feels the smooth, hard length of the stake.


End file.
